Afghan Govt Moves to Limit US-Funded Pro-Occupation Ads

One an hardly turn on a television or radio in Afghanistan these days without hearing self-proclaimed “public service announcements” urging the audience to support the US occupation, and demand President Hamid Karzai sign off on the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA).

The Afghan government investigated the proliferation of ads, and unsurprisingly found they are being bankrolled by NATO, the Pentagon, and USAID. There is now talk of limiting the ads, and one TV spot showing “ordinary Afghans” supporting the occupation has been blocked from future broadcast.

Afghan media watchdogs are expressing concern that this is a dangerous precedent, and that blocking pro-occupation ads paid for by the occupying power is a threat to “freedom of speech.”

From the perspective of media companies in Afghanistan, however, this is just about money. In a nation with virtually no economy and a massive occupying force with virtually limitless funds, pro-occupation PSAs are one of the few reliable sources of ad revenue out there.

Excellent article. The main concern of the American-led occupation force is to pave the way for UNOCAL to secure the oil-pipeline project leading from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Pakistani' port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. Thus, there is a growing constituency that believes the war was predicated on ta US firm emerging successfully for the oil pipeline project. Shortly, Afghanistan was known as "Pipelinestan," and not surprisingly, a consensus began to build over the question of the real cause for war.
The Taliban were offered a better deal by Bridas of Argentina and were therefore considering favoring the Argentines for the multi-billion dollar project. To counter, the loss required regime change by the US which precipitated a military response and placing of a hand-picked US-leader (Karzai) for the country who would support the US bid for the construction and access to the energy-rich Caspian Basin reserves, said to be the largest in the world.